it is worth mentioning the activism and social movements which are active in the field of health, environmental surveillance and monitoring or the aforementioned "popular epidemiology". These are interesting examples of communities capable of generating scientific culture in the sense suggested here. Furthermore, all these cases highlight the social mechanisms of the legitimisation/delegitimization of knowledge produced by laymen. As social studies of science have highlighted, these phenomena are related to the existence of epistemic barriers, hierarchies, and inequalities between the types of knowledge produced by experts and non-experts (Wynne, 1998;
Collins, 2014; Fricker, 2007).
To conclude the list of areas in which cases of CBSC occur, the recent rise of citizen science provides many examples. The manifestations and forms of citizen science are diverse (Gómez Ferri, 2014).
Despite this, certain activities carried out by groups of people (in particular enthusiasts of some kind of scientific activity or active participants in a multiplicity of scientific projects) constitute further evidence in favour of the existence of the phenomenon we are considering: an entity that transcends individual resources and contributions, a reality that is practised and configured communally.
From the cases mentioned in this section it is clear that there are numerous theoretical and empirical background aspects exist which allow us to discuss and address the existence of CBSC. The focus of attention should not therefore fall on an ontological debate. As in the case with quantum particles, it is no longer so much a question of determining whether scientific culture is an attribute of individuals or of groups but of whether it can and should be treated and studied in both ways.
The key question is rather that of the type of perspective in recognising the situations in which it is better to approach scientific culture in one way or another. To take up the analogy in the title of this study, it can be approached as a wave or as a particle. It is even possible that on occasions it is wise to study it in both ways. There are methodologies and techniques for studying CBSC. However, a conceptual framework for carrying out such research in a sufficiently systematic way has not yet been developed. In the following section we propose some elements which may contribute to the development of such a model for CBSC.
all the members of the group, but the individual differences are less relevant than what is shared.
For this very reason, it can be argued that CBSC is not a phenomenon reducible to individuals and their individual actions.
Analytically, the elements involved in this proposed characterisation of CBSC understood as a social practice are as follows (clarifications and terminological suggestions are given in brackets):
The series of resources (knowledge, skills, abilities, practices, and methods) of a scientific, technical or expert nature, possessed (shared) by the members of a community group,
the synergies and interactions of which (the cooperation and complementarity which form the group or community and its distribution and organisation)
give rise to situations and processes in which the community as a whole achieves a position (a shared, strong, empowering and enabling position) which
Is qualitatively and quantitatively superior to the resources of the individuals which make up this community (which transcends the simple accumulation of individual contributions; emergent properties are generated which are possessed by the group as an agent rather than by the individuals it consists of)
in order to interact in a complex and effective way (discussing "matters of concern" and possible solutions, increasing their capacity for dialogue, promoting and carrying out social initiatives, implementing "collaborative design" processes) with experts, professionals, technicians, scientific and health institutions, public authorities (the capacity to lobby the administration) and other relevant public and private players
and to contribute to scientific knowledge (scientific progress) and to the resolving of technical or expert problems.
To summarize the above, the existence of a dynamic which could be described as a generator of CBSC depends on the community:
Having scientific resources (knowledge, skills, abilities, etc.), or being otherwise able to acquire them or generate them. According to Pierre Bourdieu's theory (Bourdieu 1986, 1994) this set of resources can be understood to be a form of cultural capital but is not limited to cognitive aspects. It also contemplates axiological and above all aspects of collective practice in the form of mental and behavioural dispositions which nevertheless are not exclusively included in the ways in which cultural capital manifests itself. For Bourdieu it is institutionalised, objectified, and incorporated. In this case the cultural capital would be not only consist of information but also and especially of a set of practices to obtain, select, evaluate, and legitimate a set of data and scientific information which is generated in the process of interaction within the group, and which emerges in a novel way. These are knowledge practices which can be understood and analysed as a type of practical awareness of the practices of knowing acquired by social actors; and in this case of knowing as it occurs in science.
Sharing these resources, distributing them, and organising them efficiently thanks to the creation of a network of relationships and interaction practices; from the perspective of Bourdieu's theory of capitals this would be generated due to the existence and production of a social capital (Bourdieu, 1980). It is a network of exchanges through which material and symbolic resources circulate to transcend the community itself, since in these cases the groups created not only generate synergies and interactions within the groups themselves but also with other groups, agents, and social institutions. Social capital should not be seen as something exclusively limited to the group or community in question. Social capital is a resource which is not strictly cognitive, but through which cognitive, affective and symbolic resources circulate, whether favourably or not, and which translates into actions and public or social mobilisations which may or may not favour the objectives: achieving symbolic capital. Being well or badly related reinforces or reduces the credibility of the group, its cognitive products, and its actions.
And through its commitment to community action, being in a position to carry out the necessary actions to try to obtain recognition of the jointly produced knowledge, i.e., legitimacy. From Bourdieu's perspective (Bourdieu, 1986; 1994) this would take the form of symbolic capital, which is no more than a cultural capital which is known and recognised and therefore a power and empowerment deriving from the social recognition obtained.
It is important to emphasise that the characterisation of CBSC proposed here underlines its praxeological dimension and would therefore be accessible, in principle, to a systematisation in praxeological terms. CBSC is a type of social or if one prefers communitarian praxis. The products generated are not only shared theoretical knowledge, i.e., knowledge with a greater or lesser degree of abstraction. The existing social practices which are brought into play, in addition to the new practices emerging during the process, are essential to this approach. Some are instrumental, so to speak, and necessary for the achievement of the objectives. For example, this would be the case of computer skills at the service of an efficient search for information and the consolidation of the communication and exchange network of the community, and also familiarity with the procedures of the production and validation (or invalidation) of knowledge which scientists put into practice during their professional activities. Other practices are valuable in themselves by modifying the behavioural dispositions of the members of the group to adjust as far as possible to the knowledge obtained and to the ways in which the perceived problem can be solved according to the criteria of the community. These may adopt an infinite number of specific forms: following preventive and hygienic measures; choosing some foods or materials and rejecting others; promoting changes in cultivation, building and mobility patterns; trying new ways of relating to others, changing work habits, transforming experimental protocols for testing new drugs, and so on.
In the words of Reckwitz, these and other possible modifications of the behaviour of the community members which are transformed into social practices become routines in which a series of interconnected elements are involved: bodily activities, mental activities, objects and different forms of knowledge, symbolic elements (such as meanings), and practical knowledge and skills, in addition to emotions and motivations. “Practice […] forms so to speak a ‘block’ whose existence necessarily depends on the existence and specific interconnectedness of these elements, and which cannot be reduced to any one of these single elements" (Reckwitz, 2002, p. 249-250).